My jaw dropped as I passed through West Point, Ga., on Interstate 85 in Troup County. There on the right, stretching for almost a mile, was the massive $1.2 billion Kia Motors manufacturing plant. In this rural area of west Georgia, on the Alabama line, Kia has created thousands of jobs over the past three years.

It helps to understand why Kia selected rural West Point as a location. It is an important part of the discussion.

Kia is a Hyundai Motors brand and like all efficient manufacturers, the two share suppliers whenever possible. Hyundai has a plant one hour away in Montgomery, Ala., and Georgia’s business climate and QuickStart program played a vital role in getting the plant in Georgia.

I was confident the choice of Troup County would result in enormous population growth for the immediate area. Much to my surprise, it grew only 14 percent from 2000 through 2010. The state of Georgia grew at 18.3 percent over the same time period. To add further insult to my carefully laid out scenario, Chambers County, Ala., contiguous with Troup, lost 3 percent of its population.

After all my harping for Savannah to recruit a workforce and grow, rural Troup County was proving me wrong. Or was it?

A well-placed telephone call revealed that 90 percent of the 2,500 new employees at Kia were hired from the local workforce pool. It turns out many of the applicants had worked in the textile industry, once the major source of employment in this area of the state, now only a wisp of its former self.

So while none of these people had ever assembled an automobile, they brought to the table a desire to work, the ability learn and master a new trade and the discipline to be at work on time and do it five days a week, every week.

This last point may seem so obvious as to be trivial, but in an unskilled and poverty-stricken city, as is almost 25 percent of Savannah, this issue is a real obstacle to local prosperity.

And as usual, it disproportionately affects minorities.

We are hardly unique in this regard. Lack of soft skills is a pervasive national issue.

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and former secretary Margaret Spelling met with the National Governors Association annual meeting in July. The topic was challenges in educating our youth, with a focus on at-risk kids. At one point, Duncan reflected on the fact that in the United States there are currently 2 million high-wage high-skills jobs going begging. The disconnect is painfully obvious.

The SRI International report to Savannah Economic Development Authority warns our city and region that “overcoming workforce bottlenecks with an emphasis on technical training and communication of manufacturing career pathways to K-12 students and their parents is paramount. In the short-term, collective action is needed to recruit skilled workers from the military and outside the region.”

That one paragraph is the summation of much of the 60-page report. Savannah Technical College has awesome facilities, five campuses and a dedicated staff ready to train our people. QuickStart and SEDA have thoroughly professional organizations ready to assist any company attracted to our area by the magnets of our port and quality of life.

Nevertheless, we still have to deliver the human capital.

Meanwhile, I am trying to figure out how a junket by elected officials to Fort Wayne, Ind., to look at a baseball stadium we can ill afford, and don’t need, is remotely important given our hurdles. If officials feel the need to goof off for a day at taxpayer expense, how about spending that day learning what researchers have discovered about our economy and where we need to go.

I know for some it must seem like my sole agenda is to criticize city government. Far from it. I want only to see action. The mayor and most of city council have shown leadership in a difficult situation with the former city manager.

I now look forward to the day when elected officials, both city and county, will publicly embrace the findings of SRI, the same economic issues I have written about for nearly three years. Then we can really call them leaders.